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Closing the hydrogen skills gap

In 2016, South Africa signed the Paris agreement on climate change at the United Nations in New York. Yershen Pillay, CEO of CHIETA wrote the following article on the skills now required. This is Part 1 of a two-part article.

Yershen Pillay, CEO of CHIETA. Photo by Associated Energy Services (AES)
Yershen Pillay, CEO of CHIETA. Photo by Associated Energy Services (AES)

Signing the agreement meant that the country is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and collaborating with the global community to reduce global temperatures to below two (2) degrees Celsius. The problem that the country faces is how best to accelerate the reduction of carbon emissions to meet its commitments to the Paris agreement.

One way of accelerating the reduction of carbon emissions is the use of green hydrogen as a zero-emissions energy carrier. In 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) declared that hydrogen would be an essential source of energy for reducing carbon emissions. According to a recent report by the Hydrogen Council in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, 40 countries have developed national hydrogen strategies to tap into hydrogen’s potential to decarbonise and the industry has announced 680 hydrogen projects proposals as at the end of May 2022.

However, the emerging green hydrogen industry is facing a multitude of challenges. One significant challenge is the skills, needs and training for a hydrogen-ready workforce. This pertains to both current and future skills needs and training requirements. A recent study on reskilling the green hydrogen economy found that 80% of industry employees would require new hydrogen skills and further education about electrolysers, fuel cells, hydrogen storage and future refuelling stations. The lack of skills development and training is the biggest challenge to growing South Africa’s hydrogen economy. It’s not just accessibility to hydrogen training that poses a challenge, but actually receiving the education and skills to meet industry needs.

The main barriers to closing the hydrogen skills gap in South Africa are a lack of expertise, funding, and a lack of training facilities and equipment such as electrolyser simulators. For this reason, more needs to be done to develop South Africa’s education infrastructure and physical infrastructure to support both current and future demand. If we are unable to develop this infrastructure in the next five years, we may miss the opportunity to be a leader in this rapidly growing industry. We need to plan now for the future growth and expansion of hydrogen energy.

In the future, a more comprehensive assessment of skills requirements will be needed. The current desktop modelling places a greater emphasis on engineering qualifications with extraordinarily little attention paid to occupational qualifications. Hydrogen safety training has been less of a priority, yet safety skills programmes will be a vital part of hydrogen education. Hydrogen can be an extremely dangerous gas to work with as it is highly flammable and hence appropriate training is essential.

Continued in part two…